Strine, also spelled Stryne /ˈstraɪn/ describes a broad accent of Australian English. The term is a syncope, derived from a shortened phonetic rendition of the pronunciation of the word "Australian" in an exaggerated Broad Australian accent, drawing upon the tendency of this accent to run words together in a form of liaison.[1]
The term was coined in 1964[2] when the accent was the subject of humorous columns published in the Sydney Morning Herald from the mid-1960s. Alastair Ardoch Morrison, under the Strine pseudonym of Afferbeck Lauder (a syncope for "Alphabetical Order"), wrote a song "With Air Chew" ("Without You") in 1965 followed by a series of books—Let Stalk Strine (1965), Nose Tone Unturned (1967), Fraffly Well Spoken (1968), and Fraffly Suite (1969). An example from one of the books: "Eye-level arch play devoisters ..." ("I'll have a large plate of oysters").
In 2009, Text Publishing, Melbourne, re-published all four books in an omnibus edition.[3]
The naturalist and TV presenter Steve Irwin was once referred to as the person who "talked Strine like no other contemporary personality".[4]
See also
- Diminutives in Australian English
- Monica Dickens
- How to Talk Australians, an online miniseries looking through the eyes of teachers and students at a fictional college
References
- ^ Chris Roberts, Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind Rhyme, Thorndike Press, 2006 (ISBN 0-7862-8517-6)
- ^ The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press (1992), p. 990 (ISBN 0-19-214183-X)
- ^ "Strine". Text Publishing Company. October 2009. Retrieved 30 November 2009.
- ^ "Freakish end to a wild life", The Age
Sources
- Lauder, Afferbeck (A. A. Morrison) Let Stalk Strine, Sydney, 1965, page 9
- Steber, David. Strine and Amusing Language from the Land Down Under, Steber & Associates, 1990. ISBN 1877834009.
External links
- With Air Chew—Copyright registration copy of the song in the National Archives of Australia
- Some examples of Strine (includes audio files)